SmokeLong Quarterly is excited to nominate six fantastic stories for the 2017 Pushcart Prize!
Over the next three Tuesdays, we will announce our nominees by posting links to the selected stories and author interviews.
Today we are happy to announce that we have nominated Steve Edwards “Sometimes My Father Comes Back From the Dead” and “The Sound and The Song” by Letitia Trent!
Sometimes My Father Comes Back From the Dead
“Sometimes My Father Comes Back from the Dead” draws the reader in so effortlessly. Magic realism is not easy. It can often seem heavy-handed or forced, but Steve Edwards pulls it off with a solid, engaging voice that urges the reader along to a sort of coda in the brief line “Love is a mess.” This is a brilliant example of flash fiction. – Christopher Allen, Managing Editor
Read “Sometimes My Father Comes Back From the Dead”
Smoke and Mirrors: An Interview with Steve Edwards
The Sound and The Song
The Apocalypse is coming. Our world in crisis has inspired an onslaught of end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it stories. “The Sound and the Song” is one of these. Letitia Trent deftly uses cadence to create a confused and dazed tone as her characters, an archetypal nuclear family, succumb to the effects of a gas attack. Trent manages to make this apocalypse personal and even beautiful. – Christopher Allen
Read “The Sound and The Song”
Smoke and Mirrors: An Interview with Letitia Trent
Check back with us next Tuesday for our final round of our 2017 Pushcart Prize Nomination Announcement!
In its third year, The March Micro Marathon will be, as usual, a prompt-a-day whirlwind for 24 days. You’ll exchange drafts of micro fiction, non-fiction, and prose poetry in small groups and gather for a series of online events (all recorded for participants unable to attend live). We’ll finish with 3 competitions, and participants who are not already in SmokeLong Fitness will be invited to workshop with SmokeLong Fitness until the end of April!